A note from Steve
I wrote about this a couple of weeks back and it still hasn't stopped coming up, so here it is again in plain terms: there is no 1 September IMT deadline.
The claim doing the rounds is that non-resident buyers need to complete before Monday or get caught by the 7.5% rate. The rate is real. The deadline isn't. It came into force on 25 May, three months ago. What actually starts on 1 September is two rental schemes buried in the same law, neither of which has anything to do with people buying a home.
I'm labouring the point because panic is expensive. Rushing a €600,000 purchase to beat a date that doesn't exist is how buyers skip a survey or waive a condition they needed.
The number below is the part almost nobody mentions, and for a fair few of you it's better news than you'd expect.
Steve
The Number: €0
The extra IMT a non-resident pays compared to a Portuguese resident, on a home above €1,150,000
Above roughly €1.15 million, residents and non-residents both pay a flat 7.5%. The much-discussed non-resident surcharge simply stops existing at that level. If you're buying a villa in Luz or on the Meia Praia side at €1.3m, your tax residence makes no difference to your IMT bill at all.
Below that, it does. On anything up to about €660,000, a resident pays progressive rates working out at roughly 2% to 6%, while a non-resident pays 7.5% from the first euro with no allowances. That's somewhere near €10,000 to €11,000 extra, and on a €400,000 apartment it's real money. Between €660,000 and €1.15m the gap runs from about €10,000 to €17,000, widening as the price climbs.
Two things worth knowing. It's based on tax residence, not nationality: a Portuguese citizen living in London pays the 7.5%, a French citizen living in Lagos doesn't. And it's often recoverable. Become tax resident here within two years of buying and you can reclaim the difference. Let the place out at a moderate rent, meaning up to €2,300 a month, within six months and hold that for 36 months across the first five years, and you can reclaim it that way instead. For a lot of people the surcharge is closer to a refundable deposit than a permanent cost.
What I'd do with this: work out which of the three bands you're actually in before you let anyone hurry you. If you're above €1.15m, this whole conversation costs you nothing and there was never a reason to rush. If you're below €660,000, the €10,000 is genuine, but it has been genuine since May and it will be exactly the same on 2 September as it is on 31 August. And if there's any chance you'll move here properly within two years, ask your lawyer about the reclaim before you plan around the full amount.
Sources: idealista/news calendar of Decreto-Lei 97/2026, 19 June 2026, built on the Ordem dos Contabilistas Certificados technical note of May 2026; band comparison from Financial Options and IMT Calculator Portugal, 3 July 2026. General market commentary, not tax advice. Your lawyer or accountant should confirm your own position before you act on it.
Also this week on the blog: Western Algarve Ranks Among Portugal's Top Luxury Markets →
Curious what your place is worth now?
The ranking in that blog post is the kind of thing that quietly changes what your house is worth, and most owners here are still carrying a number in their head from whenever they last looked. If you bought before 2022, that number is almost certainly wrong, and not in the direction you'd assume.
If you'd like a real figure rather than a portal estimate, I'll put one together from actual recent sales in your street and your bracket, not regional averages. It takes me about 48 hours. There's no obligation attached to it and I won't chase you afterwards. Plenty of people ask purely because they want to know, and that's a perfectly good reason.